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Girls Recap

By Drew Grant, Noam Cohen and Alex Bedder 2/03 9:00am

Girls Recap

By Alex Bedder

Five Essay Prompts for Girls 2×4: ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’


1. The philosopher Rene Girard developed the concept of “mimetic desire,” the theory that all of our desires are really borrowed from other people–we see someone else in the bath and then we want to get in–and that denying this very normal and natural fact will only lead to conflict and pain. Discuss at least two of the characters in this episode who embody Girard’s theory, and how it might have helped them navigate the sticky social situations they find themselves in. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/18/12 8:30am

Girls Recap

Our feelings exactly (HBO)

GIRLS: Five Essay Writing Prompts (Season Finale: ‘She Did’)


These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s GIRLS. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. Um, holy shit. What?

I know, right?? I totally didn’t see Marnie making out with Bobby Moynihan’s “awkward rabbi” character. As well as those other b-a-n-a-n-a-s plot developments. Actually, all of the finale. What was up with that?? Look, I made a GIF of the reaction shots for you! (Spoilers ahead…obviously.) Read More

By Aaron Gell and Drew Grant 5/28/12 3:28pm

Girls Recap

Crack is whack (HBO)

Updated GIRLS: Five Essay Prompts (Episode 7: ‘Welcome to Bushwick a.k.a. The Crackcident’)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. The episode begins at a warehouse party. Describe the scene in light of Bakhtin’s Theory of the Carnivalesque. How are characters altered and the relationships upended by this event, when the established societal rules are briefly suspended (i.e., “tits out for Christmas”)?

Bakhtin’s’s theory of carnival was actually published in a later version of his essays, Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics, and the term “carnival” was used to explain what he considered the Russian author’s “”polyphony”: the ability of many voices to speak at once, interact with each other, and most importantly, strengthen individual arguments while finally being heard by one another. Read More